The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall have led the nation in paying
respects to the men and women who have died defending Britain and the
Commonwealth.

The royal couple, in Australia on a Diamond Jubilee tour, visited the country’s national war memorial where the Prince placed a floral tribute.

The ceremony in Canberra came ahead of the Royal British Legion remembrance festival at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in attendance.

On Sunday the focus will turn to the Cenotaph in Whitehall, with the Queen, the Prime Minister and military leaders preparing to take part in the annual Remembrance Sunday service with a two-minute silence at 11am.

It came as heritage groups launched a national online inventory of war memorials, which will provide the first clear picture of the state of the country’s monuments.

The public will be asked to upload pictures and report concerns to the website, called War Memorials Online, to help identify which memorials are most at risk before it is too late to save them.

The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall walk past the names of Australia's war dead

It followed concern over the condition of the nation’s monuments – hundreds of which are in a poor state after falling victim to thieves, vandals or sheer neglect.

Our campaign, backed by David Cameron and senior military figures, has also secured progress on calls for the prosecution of anyone caught damaging a war memorial, stiffer sentences for those convicted and tighter laws on scrap metal-dealing to deter theft.

Measures to curb the trade in stolen metal came a step closer on Friday when MPs backed the Scrap Metal Dealers Bill, which would introduce a licensing regime for traders.

Richard Ottaway, the Conservative MP steering the bill through the Commons, said the Bill’s success in getting an unopposed third reading was “immensely rewarding and poignant ... because of the timing and the significance for our sacred war memorials”.

War Memorials Online will be funded with grants of £220,000 from English Heritage and £25,000 from the War Memorials Trust (WMT) charity, which provides grants for the repair of memorials. The Imperial War Museum (IWM) is also involved.

It will include information on the location, condition and ownership of war memorials, and will allow groups and individuals to add details about their local monument. It will also provide information on the funding available and give help on how groups and individuals can apply.

Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, said: “War Memorials Online will be a major addition to the 1914 centenary in two years’ time.

“War memorials record the history of ordinary – and often extraordinary – individuals, so what could be more appropriate than a project which enables anyone and everyone to share and contribute to this history, the history of our nation’s greatest sacrifice?

Frances Moreton, director of the WMT, said: “This project is vital, as improved information will provide us with a better understanding of the war memorials we are seeking to protect.

“The condition information will help identify current and future demand for advice and grants, while public engagement will reduce the threats to, and encourage the preservation of, the nation’s war memorials.”

Both organisations are represented on the war memorials action group, set up in response to The Sunday Telegraph’s campaign, which also includes reprsentatives of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The action group has pledged to make it easier for local organisations to apply for, and obtain, funding to repair and restore memorials.

The ceremony attended by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall took place at the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier in Canberra, part of a war memorial honouring more than 100,000 Australians who have died serving the Commonwealth country in conflicts since the First World War.

The Prince laid a large wreath on the tomb before the Last Post was sounded by a bugler and a minute's silence was observed.

In the memorial’s open air commemorative area the royal couple walked past long lists of the names of Australia’s fallen, stopping at the names of those who died on operations in Afghanistan. Before leaving, they went on a brief walkabout to meet the crowds outside the memorial.

After the event, the Prince and Duchess set off for the final leg of their tour, in New Zealand, with Julia Gillard, Australian’s republican prime minister, declaring that the royal visit to her country had gone “delightfully well”.

In a further move to honour the fallen of the First World War, plans for the first memorial dedicated to the conflict’s fallen to be built in Britain since the 1930s have been unveiled.

Prince Charles places a wreath at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, New Zealand

Soldiers of the Guards who fell in battle will be remembered in a new monument at the division’s central London barracks, due to be completed by 2014. Most of the £400,000 cost has been donated by Belgians, including a £100,000 gift from the Belgian government.

A memorial garden will feature the badges of the seven guards regiments: the five regiments of Foot Guards – Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards, along with the two regiments of Household Cavalry.

At its centre will be a raised circular bed made with soil from Flanders, which will be brought to Britain next March by British and Belgian schoolchildren travelling on a Eurostar train. Around the edge will be inscribed the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae.

Andrew Wallis, curator at The Guards Museum, said: “Not everyone can afford to go to Flanders to pay their respects. We want this to be a place where people can go and have five minutes peace and quiet and five minutes for reflection.

“For the Belgians it’s about freedom. They get it more than the British do – the British have never been invaded, no one has ever been in their front room and said 'I own you’, but the Belgians have had it time and time again.

“We see this as bringing those boys home, albeit in a relatively simple way – that is why it is so important. The Guards are the scarlet thread running through the tapestry of British history.”